Obama’s three “recess appointments” to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have been ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court because Congress WAS NOT in official recess. The NRLB is required to have five members to effect a quorum, but had only two before the unconstitutional appointments were made. After the appointments, but with today’s decision, there officially remains only two members, so all decisions coming out the NRLB since that time, said to be hundreds (view them here), should be ruled unlawful, if justice is applied to the court decision. Another similar appointment of Richard Cordray to the head position of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) should now be rendered unconstitutional as well.

When G.W. was President and Obama was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, Obama publicly criticized Bush’s recess appointment of John Bolton to U.N. Ambassador. The problem for Obama then was, Congress was actually in recess. Not so when he made his NRLB and Cordray appointments. Obama’s more current problem is finding appointees which Congress will actually vote for in the numbers needed for confirmation. It’s the American way.

The lawsuit was brought by Noel Canning, a family-owned Yakima, Washington bottling company, which complained the NLRB unfairly ruled in favor of Teamsters Local 760 during contract negotiations. Noel said the board lacked a binding quorum because the recess appointments made by Obama were not legal.

“Small-business owners throughout the country have suffered under the unabashedly pro-union decisions handed down by the NLRB,” said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business, which filed an amicus brief in the case. “They deserve to be protected from unconstitutional acts that exacerbate the NLRB’s devolution from a neutral arbiter between labor and employers to a pro-union government agency.”

The Obama administration says they will now move the case to the Supreme Court, but to do that, SCOTUS has to agree to take up what amounts to the unionizing of American workers. Graphic courtesy of Winds of Jihad.